yeah. i'd be fucked without my computer. i never heard that particular anagram, but i knew the rules. i was always good at solving word problems, but my teachers always got pissed cuz i rarely showed my work. i kind of sort shit out logically, then apply the results to check accuracy.

It's water. From the ice s/he stood on to hang him/herself.

A melted block of ice.

ok , it's water, but it's pissy water. :)

This riddle comes in the form of a cryptic e-mail.

"Subject: c7362210/828 645 393
Message: please read discrep correct ord & re release i routed to qs que

-renee"

My office -- where people are so lazy with their typing their e-mails become riddles. The meaning? Your guess is as good as mine.

There are 5 houses in a row on a street, all of different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. These 5 owners each drink a certain drink, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. No two owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same drink.

The riddle is -- WHO OWNS THE FISH?

Here is all the information you have to figure it out:
<ul>
<li>the Brit lives in the red house
<li>the Swede keeps dogs as pets
<li>the Dane drinks tea
<li>the green house is on the left of the white house
<li>the green house owner drinks coffee
<li>the person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
<li>the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
<li>the man living in the house right in the center drinks milk
<li>the Norwegian lives in the first house
<li>the man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
<li>the man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill
<li>the owner who smokes Bluemaster drinks beer
<li>the German smokes prince
<li>the Norwegian lives next to the blue house
<li>the man who smokes blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
</ul>

Edit: I forgot to say... the "first" house in the clue above refers to the left-most house.

OH CHRIST

i dont have that kind of time! i'll tell you tomorrow!

Well, ok... here's an easier one in the meantime. This one works better when asked verbally, because it's cool to watch how long it takes someone to think of a solution:

There are three light bulbs in a room with no windows, and a closed door. In front of you are three on-off switches. You know that each switch controls one of the light bulbs inside the room, but you don't know which switch matches which bulb, and they are not wired in any particular order.

Your job is to match each switch to it's bulb. You may only enter the room once, and you may not leave the door open. How do you accomplish your task?

I heard this one from a client of mine... he's a site manager for a Microsoft call center. Apparently, this is one of the questions an interviewer at Microsoft will ask potential employees during an interview, to test their reasoning skills.

He told me about how he was sitting in a management meeting at Microsoft with about twenty other managers when someone posed this very question of the group... he bragged that he was he only one to come up with the answer, and it only took him about twenty minutes. So he put the riddle to my friend and I, and I figured it out almost immediately. I think I stole the pride he'd had in answering it in "only" twenty minutes. Heheh.

Incidentally, my friend later came up with a different answer than I did, which is still a valid solution, but not nearly as elegant.

Edit: I added "on-off" to the description of the switches, to clarify the fact that you know which position will turn the bulb on, and which will turn it off.

maybe this is the easy way out, but just flip all the switches and go in the room. they'll all be on. or open the door before you go in and match the switches to the bulbs.

The German owns the fish.

Yeah, the coffe-drinking, prince-smoking German in the green house! :)

"you may not leave the door open"

Also, flipping ALL the switches on does not indicate which switch goes to which bulb, it just shows that they all work.

Flip the first switch. Wait about 2 minutes. Turn it off, flip the second switch. enter the room. The lit light is controlled by switch 2. The off, but warm light is connected to switch 1. The last light is controlled by 3. :)

He's good. That's the right answer.

My friend's answer was this: Turn on a switch, then leave it on for a few years, enough time that it burns out. Turn on another switch, then enter the room. The burned-out light is switch #1, the light that is on is switch #2, and the light which is off is switch #3. Sloppy, but technically ok.

A man lies dead in a dark alley. Police find him surrounded by 52 bicycles. What happened?